


Here Again, Even With A Thought

by whipstitch



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, eat your oranges everyone, so uhhh you know how this is gonna go down eventually, some good and wholesome lads providing emotional support, until scurvy ruins everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2020-01-24 07:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whipstitch/pseuds/whipstitch
Summary: Before he was tasked with tending an entire expedition, John Bridgens was charged with the care of one man in particular.  His best is all he can do.(Character tags updated to reflect characters who’ve now shown up for meaningful time.)





	1. Chapter 1

“Mr. Bridgens.”

“Sir?”

Captain Fitzjames paused in combing his hair, though his gaze remained fixed on his reflection in the mirror. “You’ve a medical background. Indulge me, if you will. Could one…” He paused. “Dryness of the skin. That could lead to bleeding, could it not?”

“I suppose, sir,” John replied. Lord knew his own skin was prone to it; the increased likelihood of nicking himself in the cold was why he kept his beard. “Around the knuckles, particularly, since the skin there is often stretched. And dry skin is certainly more apt to bleed when scratched or scraped.”

“Ah.” Fitzjames’ shoulders sloped beneath their epaulets as he exhaled. “Small wonder, then. I’ve been doing myself in with this.” He grinned and waved his comb in response to John’s raised brow. “My much-tormented scalp has become as much a desert as the wastes outside, and my efforts to groom life back into my hair are having the opposite effect.”

John had noticed no more dead skin than usual on Fitzjames’ coats, but the captain’s hair had always been Fitzjames’ own particular prerogative. “Shall I ask Dr. Stanley or Mr. Goodsir for an ointment, sir?”

“Thank you, Bridgens, but no need. My vanity is a poor use for medical supplies. Besides, you’ve your own appearance to attend to. You still haven’t told me what you’re wearing to Carnivale.”

John smiled. “I’d a mind to go as Socrates. Or a version of him, anyway.” He hesitated to maim a set of linens, but he’d found a set of blank Greek chorus masks in the trunk, which would let him be any tragic or comic figure he pleased. It was Henry who’d suggested Socrates. He’d declared that he himself—despite the acquisition of a decidedly non-Classical green velvet coat—would go as Phaedrus, with the caveat that he had no intention of shaving his own beard.

“I’m not that old,” John had protested. “And you’re not that young. Phaedrus is a boy.”

“You’re not that old, but you’re that wise,” Henry had replied, sweetly earnest in his flattery. “And as for me, would you rather me be Alcibiades? No, thank you. The man’s a mess. Whereas Phaedrus, through his studies, is on his way to wisdom.” 

It was a pity that rank kept the officers apart from the rest of the men. Henry and Fitzjames would get on well as equals: similar age, similar propensity for reading, and—in earlier days, at least—a similar propensity for humor. John smiled to himself. Here he was, arranging play dates between his dear and his commander. They weren’t that young, indeed.

“Socrates,”Fitzjames said thoughtfully, bringing John out of his reverie. “Capital choice. I’ve opted for the classical influence in my own disguise as well.”

“Oh,” John said in surprise. “Did the gown not fit, sir?” When they’d taken stock of the costume trunk’s contents, Fitzjames had professed an unwillingness to take first pick of the costumes. He had been willing, however, to giddily snatch up a long, rose-colored dress and stash it at the bottom of the trunk for safekeeping until he could try it out later.

Fitzjames waved a hand. “No, no. It’s fine. I’ve found something more suitable.”

Something about _suitable_ didn’t sit well, nor did the fact that Fitzjames’ attention was now back on his reflection, without the usual fidgeting that John had learned to recognize as a plea for follow-up questions. _Hm._ “Will you be needing anything else, sir?”

“That will be all for now, thank you.” Fitzjames ran a fingertip along his hairline. “Just see to it that all the men are prepared for tomorrow night’s festivities.”

\--------------------------

The prelude had been glorious. Galvanized by purpose, the joint crew poured their hearts into the Carnivale preparations. Craft and imagination sprang forth in their own little icebound Renaissance. John had never seen the like, and had begun to regret not embellishing his own disguise for the occasion, for when would he have the chance again? The men sang and danced with faces flushed. Captain Fitzjames and his lieutenants whooped and gamboled like boys. Henry pressed his cheek against John’s own and wrapped an arm about his waist, claiming an excess of spirits as an excuse to lean upon him. In that moment, there was nothing to fear, not even their impending journey.

And then—

John’s recollections were a haze of stinging tears, of heat, of frantic bodies battering his own. In the crush to flee the flames, Henry had been swept from his side. That was what he most recalled: the blind panic as he lost his grip on Henry’s hand. The rest could have been a nightmare in his mind’s eye. A mercy, that. It made it easier to follow Captain Fitzjames as he sifted through the corpses, and to speak comforting words to the injured as Mr. Goodsir shepherded them to the infirmary.

The exception was the stench. Acrid smoke mingled with charred flesh had etched itself onto him. When at last he returned to _Erebus_ for the night, John caught a whiff of cooked meat from the kitchens and nearly retched.

Henry had volunteered to stay back with Captain Crozier, re-apportioning men and supplies back to _Terror_. It was the proper thing to do, and John loved him for it, but as he trudged back to his bunk, John could not help wishing Henry had returned to _Erebus_. He busied his hands by blotting the soot from his coat.

After some time, he heard the sound of boots on boards. A flash of red passed by the curtain. John scrambled into the corridor and found Fitzjames, his scarlet Britannia cloak draped over his shoulders, unlocking the door to his quarters.

“I’m sorry, sir. I should have done that. Let me.” John angled past Fitzjames into the great cabin and began lighting the lamps. Fitzjames followed, the tattered edge of the cloak trailing over his arm to the floor. He tossed it onto his bunk and stood in the middle of the room as if he wasn’t sure what he’d come there for.

John awaited an order, or at least a gesture. When neither came, he cleared his throat. “I’ll take your coat for you. It’ll need to be cleaned.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose so. Thank you.” Fitzjames pulled the cap off his head and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. John noticed a rusted smudge along the top of Fitzjames’ forehead. 

“Sir, do you need a bandage? Looks like you’ve been bleeding.”

Fitzjames gingerly reached up to brush it. Red flaked off on his fingers and he let out a choked laugh. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

John smothered the urge to check for himself and went to unfasten the brass buttons, now tarnished. Fitzjames stood still, but his hand twitched. “Have you read Froissart, Mr. Bridgens?” he asked lightly.

If this was an attempt at normal conversation, John would oblige. “Pieces, sir. My French isn’t up to reading him as he’s written.”

“He has a rather apt story. Some French king or other held a masque. He and his courtiers went in costumes and an errant torch lit the whole group of them ablaze.”

“The _Bal des Ardents._ ” John did know the tale, and apt it was. Amid the personal tragedies and acts of chivalry Froissart had set down, the Bal des Ardents stood out for its sheer strangeness. There had been no buildup or resolution to the event; it simply stood on its own, a nightmarish tableau. “An awful thing for the French.”

“Indeed. Though I daresay, they could have done more,” Fitzjames said. “Those things don’t just happen.

“The king and his wife banned torches from the room, as I recall. It was the king’s brother—Orleans—who brought the torch inside, and he himself was drunk.” John extricated Fitzjames from the coat.

“Yes, but someone else should have been thinking, surely,” Fitzjames said, breaking away. “For one thing, someone should have stopped him entering. Imagine, casualties at a ball. I know it’s the medieval era, but really now, how hard is it to host one little celebration?” 

His voice grew shrill as he began to pace. “Just think, amidst plague and a century-long war, they throw a party and somehow surpass all the other horrors around them. You know, one fellow survived by leaping into a vat of wine. And the king only lived because his sister shielded him with her skirts. Left to his own, he’d have burned like his poor friends. He went on to lose his country to England, of course, so I suppose it’s a suitably calamitous beginning. And I’ll grant you, he was a young king, but youth isn’t foolishness. No king worth his crown would tempt fate that way in the first place—” 

John caught him by the shoulders. “An accident, Captain.” Laying hands on an officer was insubordination at best, but they could not lose a second commander to dark thoughts. He looked Fitzjames full in the face. “Froissart writes that the people blamed Orleans for it after. Orleans, not the king. It was a terrible accident, sir. They have happened, and they will happen.”

“Ours was no accident,” Fitzjames said quietly.

“No.” John shuddered at the memory of Dr. Stanley’s unblinking eyes as he’d raised the torch. “But it wasn’t your doing, or mine, or any man else’s.”

Fitzjames nodded and slumped heavily onto his bunk, both feet planted on the ground as his head tilted back against the wall. John hung up his coat. “Would you like something to eat, sir?”

“No. No, I’m not hungry.” 

“Tea, at least?”

Fitzjames’ eyes squeezed shut. “I should like to be left alone, Mr. Bridgens. Please.”

He’d gathered the cloak into his lap like a blanket. Goodness, but the captain was young. “You’ve been out on the ice all day, sir,” John said hesitantly. “You must have something. I’ll make tea.”

Fitzjames said nothing, which was fortunate since John hadn’t quite thought through what he would do in the face of objection. John went to stoke the stove and put the kettle on. It was soothing, after the day, to do something regular. Soothing, too, to keep a fire contained.

“It happened far away, before,” Fitzjames said suddenly.

“Sir?” John turned back to face him.

“In China. The snipers. They—” Fitzjames’ mouth twisted into a line as he wrung his hands in the remains of his cloak. “All we could see was the fire and the smoke. I couldn’t smell anything but the powder. The air was so heavy, and it was too far to—but they must have—their skin—Christ, and I’ve _laughed_ about it. For years now, I’ve made jokes. Committed them to writing, even. What monsters we are, after all. Perhaps we’ve deserved this, if there’s anything to deserve.”

His fingertips had begun to purple. John crossed the room and carefully placed his hand upon Fitzjames’. The cloak went slack. John gathered it over his arm. “Tea’s almost on, sir.” 

As if on cue, the kettle whistled, startling Fitzjames back to the here and now. “My apologies, Mr. Bridgens. You’ve had as long a day as I have and I’m dismal company.” He rose and gestured at the table. “Take a cup of tea yourself, will you? Chamomile, I think. Neither of us needs any help to keep awake.”

John gave him a slight smile as he retrieved two cups and saucers from the tea service. “Thank you, sir. A moment’s rest will do us both good. And you can be as dismal as you please.”


	2. Chapter 2

As sunlight slowly reclaimed its share of the day, John found himself hurtled from steward capable of triage to de facto expedition surgeon. Mr. Goodsir held in his head a catalogue of every man’s malady—and every woman’s, too, now that the Lady Silence berthed on _Terror_ —and sent John scrambling as his second, less adept pair of hands. Carnivale’s living casualties were in no danger of succumbing to their wounds, but the cracked bones and twisted ligaments needed to be back in working order for the journey ahead. Captain Crozier insisted that any man with a bone that needed setting take every care not to use it, and let the able-bodied pick up the slack.

That was the one stroke of good fortune—Crozier’s return to deck. Henry reported that he hadn’t seen their commander so energetic since they’d set sail.

“You’d have thought we were done for as soon as we cleared the Irish Sea, with his gloom,” Henry confided as he lingered aboard _Erebus_ on an errand. “Like melancholy Jacques without the poetry. He’s lively now, all cheer, like he _means_ it. Do you think he does?”

“I do,” John said, as he set about repacking medicines in the crates Henry had delivered from _Terror_. In all Fitzjames’ complaints about _Terror_ ’s captain, duplicity had never been among them. If anything, it had been the opposite—uncouth bluntness, a lack of congeniality. “Captain Crozier is not a man to mince his words. He’s been on polar expeditions before. He knows what he asks of us. If he says we have a chance, then he believes it so.”

Henry’s smile wrinkled the edges of his dark eyes. He caught John’s hand as John reached for another medicine bottle. “If you trust it, then that’s good enough for me.”

It was another story on _Erebus_. While Crozier had bloomed, Fitzjames had wilted. Whatever help their talk after Carnivale provided had been short-lived. The usual stream of chatter as John helped Fitzjames dress had dried. John prodded at him with questions and received one-word answers; inquiries about his welfare were waved irritably away. John had wondered if he’d done something to put Fitzjames off until he noted him giving the same treatment to Lieutenant Le Vesconte.

John let him be, after that, but he marked the circles that grew under Fitzjames’ eyes, and the dim orange glow that shone beneath the door of the captain’s quarters late into the night. Fitzjames bustled about the ship in focused silence, taking on any unclaimed duties he could manage.  The only man to rival him was Mr. Collins, intrepid as ever.

Half of John’s tasks as steward now seemed to involve brewing pots of strong black tea with lemon juice _and nothing else, thank you_. A man could have worse vices than tea, to be sure. John worried nonetheless.

On one such errand, John obtained the storeroom’s last remaining biscuits—hard, stale, but unspoiled—and set them on a plate alongside the requested teapot. He returned to where he had left Fitzjames poring over a stack of papers on the cabin’s table.

Fitzjames frowned as John nudged a chart aside and set down the tray.  “What are those? I know I didn’t ask for them.”

“Thought you could do with something to eat, sir,” John replied. “You’ve been at it awhile now.”

“We’ve precious little food left that isn’t tinned, spoiled, or both,” Fitzjames said irritably. “Take these back and save them for the men. We’re beyond special privileges in these extreme times, I think”

John longed to point out that his own presence and Fitzjames’ private quarters were also special privileges, but held his tongue. He opted for another truth. “That’s all there is left, sir. We can’t well play favorites. We may as well toss a golden apple into the mess as distribute these.”

Fitzjames grumbled, but he did take up a biscuit. He winced as he bit into it. As he swallowed, he bared his teeth and wiped them with his napkin.

“Shall I fetch a glass, sir?”

Fitzjames examined the napkin before refolding it. “No, no need.” He tapped his fingers along the edge of his saucer. “Bridgens, you hear things. What do the men say of me?”

 _Ah, here it is_. “It wasn’t your fault, sir.”

“I did not ask that. I asked what they say of me.”

John considered. The answer a month ago would have been _nothing._ Even as Fitzjames acted as commander of the expedition, even as the majority of Terrors had flocked to _Erebus_ after the flogging, the talk at supper had been fond remembrances of Sir John or complaints of Crozier’s dourness. Flashy Fitzjames, the center of attention in the wardroom, was a nonentity in the mess. Carnivale had changed that—not in the way Fitzjames had hoped, perhaps, but neither in the way he feared. The men did not know him well enough to wonder at his silence. They wondered only at his presence.

 _“If Dr. Goodsir is now Dr. MacDonald, and you are now Dr. Goodsir, and Captain Fitzjames is now you, does it follow that Dr. MacDonald’s poor ghost is Captain Fitzjames?”_ Henry had mused, compelling John to swat him.

“They mark what you do here,” John answered. “All the extra duties, whether they’re at your station or no. The injured men, especially. It encourages them.”

Fitzjames appeared startled. “It does? Truly?”

“Captain, with all due respect, I almost think you’re putting me on,” John said. “Why shouldn’t they?”

“The number of disasters we—”

John cut him off. “You and Captain Crozier have seen us through calamities the Admiralty will never believe. You’re set to walk us eight hundred miles, and now you’re scrubbing floors. I had to order one man back to his rest, because he insisted a captain had no place doing a seaman’s work.”

“Did you?” Fitzjames’ eyebrows quirked upward. “I almost think you’re putting _me_ on now. Who was that?”

“Tom Hartnell.” The boy had taken it personally when Bridgens declared that his ankle wasn’t yet fit for service. “He’s come a long ways from insubordination, that one. He’s nearly mended if misplaced guilt doesn’t lead him to try carrying a load he’s got no business hauling yet.” John met Fitzjames’ eyes. “If I may, sir, he’s not the only one set to mangle himself carrying something that isn’t his.”

Fitzjames smiled and, at last, took a sip of tea. “Noted, O wise Phoenix.”

“I’m no Phoenix and you’re no Achilles, sir,” John laughed. “And I mean that as a compliment to us both. But keep out of your tent, sir, as it were.”

“I shall try.” Fitzjames broke the second biscuit in two and offered John the other half. “Sit, please. You’ve been running about as much as I have, if not more. How have things been with Mr. Goodsir?”

“Taxing,” John confessed as he took both the biscuit and his seat. “The Admiralty thought this much work could be handled by six, and we’re only two. Or one and a half, more like. I only do what I’m told.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Bridgens,” Fitzjames said warmly. “Goodsir tells me you’re capable, as I myself suspected. Besides, it’s comfort that the men need now as much as medicine, and you’ve an uncanny knack for providing that.”

John was touched by the unexpected earnestness of the compliment. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re more than welcome, as it’s the truth.” Fitzjames took another sip of tea. “Is the work itself agreeable to you, then?”

John nodded. Stress or no, it was cathartic doing something so immediately helpful. He couldn’t thaw the ice or spirit Henry and the others across the island, but he could help them mend. “It is. I wish circumstance didn’t require it, but it is.”

Fitzjames clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “I’m glad to hear you say so. I’ve been thinking—”  

John’s misgiving must have shown on his face, for Fitzjames stopped mid-sentence and let out a bark of laughter. “Don’t look so skeptical! I _do_ think on occasion, I assure you.” He held up a hand as John began to protest. “I’m having you on, Mr. Bridgens. I only mean to say that I’ve been considering our circumstances. We’re in for a long haul, in the most painfully literal sense of the phrase. I don’t need to tell you that the physical toll on the men will be excruciating. Knowing that, a change of priorities is in order. Henceforth, if you agree, you are relieved of your stewardship duties. You will report first and foremost to Mr. Goodsir and answer to me in the same manner that he does. Mr. Goodsir will be master of your time, not I. He will use it well, I have no doubt.”

John’s heart swelled. With leave to shuttle between the ships daily, it would be easier to keep with Henry. And yet—Fitjzames’ reasoning was sound, but the timing felt amiss. “Are you certain, Captain?”

“Goodsir needs assistance saving lives more than I need assistance tying my cravat, particularly once we start walking. I can tend to myself, Mr. Bridgens.”

John thought of the lamp light in Fitzjames’ room at all hours, of the captain’s withdrawal. The deepening lines in his face were not all from the smile he currently wore. “You need to prove that to me, sir,” John said before he could stop himself. “If I don’t take care of you, you must give me your word that you’ll manage it yourself, because you’ve been doing a poor job of late. Begging your pardon, sir.”

Fitzjames clasped his hands again. An almost wistful look crossed his face.  “As I said, I shall endeavor to keep out of my tent. I will miss your companionship—but after all, we’re never far apart on a ship.”

“No, indeed,” John said with a smile of his own. “You let me know if you need anything, Captain. Anything at all. Even if it’s just a second pair of eyes on the knot you’ve picked for that cravat.”

For the second time, Fitzjames laughed—a welcome sound after the withdrawal these past days. “There is no set of eyes I trust more.” He rose from the table and extended his hand. It hovered awkwardly beside John’s shoulder until it dropped to a handshake. “Godspeed to you, Mr. Bridgens.”


	3. Chapter 3

With one foot in the wardroom and one in the mess, John had thought he had a sound grasp on the state of affairs aboard the ships. He learned with Goodsir that the infirmary held its own secrets.

“You must watch for strange behavior. Not—not the regular sort of melancholy that comes from the darkness. This is something else—something more frantic. If you suspect a man has hurt himself, or will hurt himself, you bring him to me. Please.”

John nodded. What was it Mr. Blanky had told the captain? _The mind goes unnatural with thoughts._ Little else could account for Dr. Stanley save for the supernatural. “Is it an illness?”

“Yes, but not of the contagious sort. It’s…” Goodsir pursed his lips and hummed. “Forgive me. I do not know if—well. Captain Fitzjames said you’re to answer to me. That means you can know what I know.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “It’s the tins, Mr. Bridgens.”

“I know Mr. Diggle found some rotten.”

“Rotten is the least of it. It’s the tins themselves. They’ve been seeping lead into our food since we first set sail. Are you familiar with the symptoms of lead poisoning, Mr. Bridgens?”

“A bit.” John knew his history. “Weakness. Mental deterioration.”

Goodsir nodded. “And we’re both of those already from our circumstances. The critical sign is a ring of grey around the gums.”

“Like Mr. Morfin has, sir?”

“Yes. Anytime you see that, mark it and relay it to me.”

“I will, sir.” The revelation ought to be horrifying, he knew. Their food could be killing them--had been killing them. Nonetheless, John felt strangely unconcerned. Perhaps he had the wisdom not to fear a background threat they had lived with for years already. Or perhaps, as Shakespeare said, he had supped full with horrors and direness could not once start him. He hoped it was the first. “Do the men—”

“No,” Goodsir sighed, “and they must not. The captains know. Or at least, Captain Crozier does. He determines that the men must not know, so as not to dismay them further. Captain Fitzjames ordered the cooks to rely more on salted meats back when the tins came up spoiled. That will have to suffice until we can find fresh meat.” Goodsir’s eyes were downcast behind his spectacles. “There is no sense telling the men until something can be done, but I do not like keeping secrets, Mr. Bridgens.”

“Well, you’ve me to share it with now,” John told him. “I don’t suppose… the Lady Silence kept herself healthy when she camped near us. She must have eaten something.”

“She has not offered, and I will not ask it," Goodsir said. "She could not tell us now at any rate, with her injury. It takes her people years to learn to hunt the proper way, so I suppose it’s just as well. And I suspect… I suspect that she did not find all her food herself.”

John shuddered. Henry had refused to speak of what he’d seen on his trek with Lieutenant Gore those months ago, but John could guess. As John had read aloud from Homer after the party's return, a battle passage that sang of men hewn in two and gutted like fish, Henry had begun shake and weep. “If she has the creature’s affections enough to keep it from us now, that’s help enough. Is there anything else you’d like me to keep an eye on, sir?”

“Manage the medicines and other supplies as you have been. Captain Crozier wants a precise inventory and is quite adamant that no man medicate himself.” Goodsir pushed his glasses back up his nose. “And watch for scurvy, I suppose. Dr. MacDonald believed our lemon juice was losing its potency. Look out for the usual signs—bleeding gums, bruises, fatigue, joint pain. You know, I’m sure. You’ve sailed enough.”

John nodded. “I’ve felt the early stages of it before. It comes on slow and rights itself quick. That’s a mercy, at least.”

“Another problem that will be solved with food,” said Goodsir. “Focus on the men’s minds for now, I think. I fear after Carnivale that scurvy is the lesser worry.”

\-----

John wasn’t sure if the problem had worsened or Goodsir’s talk had simply made him more observant, but the telltale ring of grey appeared more and more. Those afflicted seemed unbothered; indeed, if they asked about it at all, it was usually for fear that it was scurvy. Their relief when John assured them otherwise might have been unfounded, but morale was what they needed. If omission gave them hope, so be it. He almost gave up asking if they were fatigued, for the handful who would admit to it always insisted that the other men felt the same.

“We’re all tired, and we all likely have headaches, too,” said Henry after he’d confessed to having both. “Don’t fret over me, John. I’m fine.”

“Fretting over you is my duty on this expedition, Henry. Now show me your teeth.” 

Henry obliged. John cupped Henry’s face in his hands and gently tugged back the edges of his mouth. He found the gums a reddened pink. “You’re fine,” he said, but his hands lingered.

“Told you.” Henry’s lips closed soft around John’s thumbs. “But if this is you fretting, I don’t mind.”

With John tasked with monitoring supplies, it was easy to arrange reasons for Henry to visit _Erebus._ Absolved of his stewardship obligations, it was easier still for John to steal time alone with him without worrying he should be elsewhere. John still had to quell the impulse to knock when he passed the great cabin, but Fitzjames had held up his end of the bargain. He greeted John brightly when they passed in the corridor. He spent as much time aboard _Terror_ as Henry did on _Erebus._ The orange glow still shone from beneath Fitzjames’ door, but it was accompanied now by visiting voices—Lieutenant Le Vesconte’s or, with increasing regularity, Captain Crozier’s.

The broken bones in the infirmary mended, the captain was well, and Henry was his.

It seemed to John a suspicious amount of good fortune.

\---

“It’s funny going from Herodotus to Xenophon,” Henry remarked. 

They sat together on John's bunk--or rather, Henry sat. John lay with his head on Henry’s lap, his knees drawn up and feet braced against the foot of the mattress. “How so?”

“Xenophon’s so matter-of-fact. He writes like… well, like one of us, or maybe more one of the officers. It feels real.” Henry stroked John’s hair. “I mean, it was real, but so were the wars with Greece and Persia, and Herodotus doesn’t feel that way. And he wasn’t even there, was he?”

“You’ve a good memory. Yes, he wrote it all after. Xenophon’s writing memoir. Herodotus is writing chronicles of a sort.” John took Henry’s free hand and brought it to his lips. “I should give you Thucydides next. Thucydides wrote during. He didn’t know how his stories would end.”

“I’m still not sure how Herodotus ends even though I’ve read it. How much was real, do you think?”

“He saw some of the things for himself, but there’s a good bit of hearsay.”

“D’you mean to say that there aren’t giant fuzzy ants in Arabia?”

John laughed. “If there were, I’m sure Captain Fitzjames would have mentioned them.”

“Mr. Bridgens?”

John’s old muscles protested as he flung himself upright. Henry vaulted off the bunk and stumbled, nearly colliding with Fitzjames as the man himself poked his head around the curtain.

“Mr. Bridgens, could you spare a moment?”

John’s heart pounded. What had the captain seen? What had he heard? He cleared his throat to calm his voice before responding. “Of course, sir.”

“Mr. Peglar, as you were. You may wait here.”

“Yes, sir.” Henry shot John a worried glance. John gave a slight shake of his head. He could only guess what this might be about, and none of the options were good.

Fitzjames led him to the great cabin, closing the door behind them. “My apologies for taking you from your visit. I did not wish to interrupt your work with Mr. Goodsir, so I must impose on your leisure.”

He sat and motioned for John to do the same. Working for Fitzjames this many years had given John a decent read of the captain’s moods. His apology did not include sarcasm. John relaxed a bit and sat. “It’s no trouble, sir. I’m happy to talk. I miss the stories.”

Fitzjames laughed. “Really, Bridgens, you’re not obliged to flatter me anymore. It’s Goodsir you should worry about. If he decides to share with you his complete knowledge of the creatures he’s found under that microscope, then you are in trouble. How have you fared?”

“Better than expected. I’ve not cut off a limb yet, at least. What of you, sir? It’s good seeing you on merrier terms with Captain Crozier.”

“Francis is well. Very well.” A quiet sort of smile crossed Fitzjames’ face before he abruptly cleared his throat. “On an unrelated note, your Mr. Keats is _not_ well. The man is all sentiment. I admire these Romantic fellows to a point, but his effusion is an excess. Imagine being that overcome by an amphora.”

“He writes from emotion, true,” John said. “He was always very young.”

“That much is obvious,” Fitzjames scoffed. “‘Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought as doth eternity.’ The sheer melodrama! It’s a _vase._ ”

“It is. But melodrama or no, you did remember that line, sir.”

“I suppose I did. I shall persevere on your recommendation.”

John smiled. “I’m glad. But I doubt, somehow, that you summoned me to pick my brain about poetry.”

“You’re not mistaken.” Fitzjames drummed his armrest with his fingertips. “Before I continue, understand that I speak to you in your capacity as physician only.”

John began to rise. “Shall I fetch Mr. Goodsir?”

“No. Or rather, not now. I only…” Fitzjames clasped his hands together in his lap and directed his gaze at them. “I thought it best to notify you that the lemon juice, as dear Dr. MacDonald suspected, has most certainly lost its medicinal properties.”

“How would…” John’s question died as remembered the tea with lemon guzzled between each meal. “Are you ill, Captain?”

Fitzjames nodded slowly, his eyes still fixed on his hands. “Yes. Yes, Mr. Bridgens, I am ill.”

Panic surged back into John’s chest. Fitzjames had access to the best of their food stores and the most comfortable quarters. If he had succumbed to scurvy, there must be others, and there was no cure on hand. “Symptoms?”

“I first noticed blood. Not on my teeth—on my head.”

The red streak along his forehead. “Since Carnivale.”

“Yes. It’s under control otherwise,” Fitzjames added hastily. “Fatigue and headaches—though those could be anything, frankly. And these.” He unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up one of his shirt sleeves. Ugly, angry bruises stood out on his forearm. “They look worse than they feel. I don’t recall any injury that would’ve caused them, and their color’s consistent.”

John gingerly touched one of the marks. They were soft, not inflamed. “It’s something inside, yes. You did right in telling me. I’m sorry, Captain.”

“Well, there’s nothing for it.” Fitzjames rolled his sleeve back down. “I must hope we find game on our walk and keep my spirits up in the meantime, I suppose. But tell Mr. Goodsir that scurvy is now among us."

“He’ll want to see you himself,” John said. “Captain Crozier ought to know, too.”

Fitzjames shook his head sharply. “You must not tell Francis.”

“Captain Crozier will learn it from Mr. Goodsir if one of us does not tell him first.”

“There is no reason for Mr. Goodsir to know that I am the first afflicted, either. You will tell him you have a confirmed case of scurvy. You will tell him that the lemon juice is ineffective. Unless Mr. Goodsir has a treatment, there is no reason for anyone else to know of my condition. He and Fr—Captain Crozier—have enough to worry about as it is. Do you understand?”

Fitzjames’ eyes were wide and pleading. John relented. “I’ll keep your name out of it, sir.”

Fitzjames exhaled in relief. “Thank you, Mr. Bridgens. I’ll tell him at an appropriate time, I assure you.”

John wondered which _him_ Fitzjames meant. “If it’s any help, sir, I had it once when I was younger. Our ship hit doldrums and sat for three weeks past when we were due to arrive in port. I’d started tasting blood around my teeth, but once we got moving again, fresh food sorted it all out.” John smiled at him reassuringly. “It’s slow to act and quick to cure. You’ll be fine if you take care, sir.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Fitzjames returned the smile, albeit shakily. “You may go.”

John emerged and found Henry in the corridor outside his quarters. “I felt strange sitting in your bunk alone, so I came out here. What was that?”

John recalled Goodsir’s words. _I do not like keeping secrets, Mr. Bridgens_. “You’ll tell me if you feel any different, won’t you, Henry?”

“Of course." Henry frowned. “Is everything alright?”

“I’ll walk you back to _Terror._ I need to speak with Mr. Goodsir.”


	4. Chapter 4

Spring had come again, bringing daylight but no sign of a thaw. Possessions were packed away or discarded. Stores were set aside for the skeleton crew remaining with the ships. The time had come to walk.

It was not a moment too soon, John reflected as he shifted his harness. More and more men sported grey around their gums, and those who’d shown it first—like poor Mr. Morfin, now stumbling with the sledge ahead of theirs—complained more of aches and fatigue. The mandragora John had administered on Goodsir’s recommendation seemed to have little effect. Alongside all this, the scurvy had spread. Captain Fitzjames may have been the first case confirmed, but he was far from the only one. Captain Crozier, currently leading the party out of harness, remained hale and hardy, as did Mr. Blanky walking beside him. But the scurvy now afflicted both of Terror’s stewards, Lieutenant Hodgson, countless seamen—

And Henry.

John squinted against the sunlight to where Henry hauled beside him. Henry had never dealt with scurvy himself before, but he had watched men die of it. John reassured him as best he could, and told Henry in no uncertain terms to come to him if anything changed. All he had at present were headaches and bleeding around his teeth. He’d noticed his symptoms a full month after Fitzjames had first discovered his. Fitzjames served as a human barometer of sorts: as the first afflicted, he’d be the first to manifest symptoms.

Captain Fitzjames currently hauled to John’s other side. He stood tall despite the harness, his footsteps wide and sure. He had reported no additional ailments, which John took as a good sign. If the captain was active as ever, Henry had nothing to fear just yet.

“How long did it take you to make it to land before?” John asked.

“Three days,” Henry panted. “Going full-tilt, though, and we’re hardly doing that now.”

“You didn’t have a voyage’s worth of supplies with you, though.”

“That we didn’t.” Henry made a face. “And I would dearly like to know who decided we ought to bring a writing desk this time around.”

Across from them, Fitzjames snorted. “I assure you that I have been wondering that very thing myself, Mr. Peglar. My money’s on its owner reconsidering within the next two hundred miles.”

“I’d go in with you on that, sir,” Henry replied with a grin.

John looked at the sledges ahead of them, all packed to the gills. Henry’s point had merit. They’d been only been hauling half a day, and already their load seemed excessive. Food and medicines were one thing, but the heavier items they could do without. Henry had talked of cliffs created when the pack pushed against the mainland, like an arctic Dover. With this much weight…

“I shouldn’t have packed the library,” John said aloud.

Henry protested this loudly. “Blasphemy, Mr. Bridgens!” Fitzjames declared. “We’re shocked, the both of us. Absolutely aghast. It’s like hearing a man forsake his child.”

“Pity this dear child can’t learn to walk,” Henry teased.

“Oh, we do what we must for those we love,” Fitzjames said. “Captain Crozier has determined that every man may part with his own belongings in his own time. Do with the library as you will, Mr. Bridgens, but I believe more than one of us will take it up if you discard it.”

Henry tugged his harness higher on his shoulders. “Given what the sledges weigh, we might have just hauled Erebus itself.”

“Having once undertaken that very thing, Mr. Peglar, I can confirm that hauling a ship is worse.”

John could well guess what Fitzjames referred to. He chuckled as Henry’s eyebrows shot up beneath his cap. “Beg pardon, sir, but you hauled a ship?”

“Two, in fact.” Fitzjames turned towards Henry as much as his harness allowed, clearly delighted to have discovered a fresh audience. “When I was young—”

“Have a care for your listeners, Captain,” John interrupted. “If you’re no longer young, what does that make me?”

“Mr. Bridgens is correct, James.” Captain Crozier had fallen in beside their party to Fitzjames’ left. “You’re not grey yet and I’ll not have you giving one of my men a false notion of age. What story is it this time?”

John tensed. _An upstart bombast in love with his own voice,_ he’d once heard Crozier mutter to Mr. Jopson as he arrived to an officers’ dinner, and based on Fitzjames’ reports, he’d said as much to his face. He hoped dearly that the captains’ late accord had moved beyond that.

Fitzjames rolled his eyes. “That preposterous scheme to navigate the Euphrates by steamship, all the way from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.”

“Ah, a good one.” Crozier flashed Henry a gap-toothed grin, and John relaxed. “You’ll think this is fiction, Mr. Peglar, but I’ve read the Admiralty’s reports. Every word he says is true.”

“But… the Euphrates doesn’t reach the Mediterranean, does it? And aren’t there mountains?” Henry asked.

“Congratulations, Mr. Peglar, you have shown yourself to have a stronger grasp of geography than our commander,” replied Fitzjames drily.

“I’ve read my Xenophon.” Henry beamed at John. “…Hold on, does that mean you had to _carry the ships to the river?”_

“Oh, indeed we did. It was the worst expedition I’ve ever had the misfortune of serving,” Fitzjames groaned.

“Present situation and company excluded, I presume,” Crozier said ruefully.

“Not at all, Francis.”

A pause lingered in the air before Fitzjames coughed and continued, “Because at least there are no mosquitoes in the Arctic. I had malaria twice.”

“You’re in for a saga, Mr. Peglar,” Crozier said. “Let me spell you for a bit so you can walk closer to your audience.”

A call was made to halt. At each sledge, a man swapped out with one who’d walked. John watched as Crozier helped Fitzjames out of the harness and cinch it over his own shoulders. The captains had reached an accord indeed. 

Fitzjames moved to the right of Henry and launched into the tale of his ordeal with Colonel Chesney the instant they resumed walking. John smiled as the sound of their chatter fall into the background against the scrape of the sledge. His idle musing months ago had been correct; the two younger men got on well.

After some time, Crozier matched his pace with John’s. “I thank you, Mr. Bridgens, for your emergency service. Dr. Goodsir speaks highly of you, all the men feel safer knowing we have a second man with a physician’s touch.”

“Thank you, sir. What I know comes from books and experience, so I’m afraid I’d make a poor surgeon. We’re lucky to have Dr. Goodsir’s patience.”

“And your own as well, from what James tells me,” Crozier said. He stole a glance back towards the two younger men. Henry was now exclaiming over Fitzjames’ dramatic reveal of fraudulent maharajas. “You’d never know they were ill, listening to them now.”

John’s surprise must have shown in his face, for Crozier continued, “Dr. Goodsir keeps a thorough record of the men afflicted, and I make it my business to know. He had an omission in it for some time, however. A doctor cannot override a captain.”

_You must not tell Francis._

“Captain Fitzjames told you, then.”

“Not exactly. Blood came off on his napkin one day at dinner. He tried to tell me he’d bit his lip, as though I haven’t been sailing since before he was born.” Crozier looked straight ahead, his expression inscrutable behind his tinted glasses. “But by your response, Mr. Bridgens, I take it that you knew before.”

John nodded. “I did, sir. We went to Goodsir straight away, but he ordered me to keep his name out of it. And he is—begging your pardon, sir, but he is my captain first.”

“I don’t blame you, Mr. Bridgens,” Crozier said gently. “I suspected as much. Lord knows you could fill a book with what I’ve told Lieutenant Little and Mr. Jopson to keep to themselves. But now, as the commander of this expedition and his friend, I am asking you—has he told you anything else?”

“No, sir. He showed me bruises on his arm, and I’ve seen bleeding on his head. This is the first I’ve heard of his teeth.” Henry’s teeth had been an earlier sign, or so he’d thought. John felt his heart constrict.

Crozier sighed. “I suspected as much. But going forward, you will come immediately to me if you learn anything new. Is that understood?”

It was less an order than a plea, and one that John had heard before.

_You’ll tell me if you feel any different, won’t you, Henry?_

“I will, sir. You have my word.”

Crozier clasped John’s shoulder. “Thank you, Mr. Bridgens.”

Crozier did not break his stride, but his hand squeezed just a moment too long. John looked back to Fitzjames, just in time to see him steal a glance at Crozier as he boasted to Henry of a broken leg.

John wondered what else he had missed.

\-------------------

The scrambled state of affairs on the march meant a prolonged mingling of ranks. Henry and Captain Fitzjames became fast friends, with one as hungry for stories as the other was to tell them.

“Can you believe that he walked fifty miles in one day? You never told me Captain Fitzjames did all that!” Henry whispered accusingly in their tent the first night they camped. 

“I didn’t hide it,” John said. “I’m not going to be telling you the captain’s business. He’s thrilled to tell you himself.”

“He ought to write a memoir!”

“Tell him that tomorrow and you’ll make his day.”

“Does he write?”

“He’s an officer; he must. And he draws.”

“Draws what?”

John laughed. “He’s stolen your admiration, I see.”

Henry’s eyes went wide. “Oh, John, no, I don’t—”

He looked so mortified that John took pity. “Shh. I’m having you on, Henry. It’s good to see you in high spirits, is all. Hold onto that.”

Henry nodded. “I’ll try. We’ll start hitting the rugged parts of the pack later tomorrow, if we have the pace I think we do. It’ll be hard going from there until we hit shore.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine, John. I’m alright. Only—” Henry rolled onto his side. “I don’t think we’re taking the exact same route as before, or I hope we’re not. Mr. Des Voeux and Mr. Hartnell would remember better than me. They’ve a better eye at orienteering. But if we are… the creature would remember, I think. It’s too clever. And you can’t see hardly anything in the crags.”

John raised his head to check that the other occupants of their tent were asleep before reaching across to take Henry’s hand. “Every man not in harness is keeping watch, and we have Lady Silence with us now. Dr. Goodsir thinks it won’t harm her, and if she wished to harm us, she’d have done so sooner. There’s nothing to do but keep going.”

“Like the Spartans.”

“Exactly like.”

If anything, the terrain they found was worse than Henry had thought; another year with no thaw, Fitzjames explained when John asked, had led to denser accumulation. As they shoved the sledges up over the ice, John thought of Hannibal bringing elephants across the Alps. Hannibal had the better lot, in his determination. At least elephants could move themselves.

Cheer was their saving grace. The men by and large were grateful to be on the move; arduous action was action nonetheless. There was also something to be said for the equality the march provided. Every man hauled, regardless of rank, and every man had his turn to rest. Henry and Fitzjames fell in besides each other every morning and the two kept each other entertained until Fitzjames was drawn away to conference with the other officers. Occasionally Lieutenant Le Vesconte cycled in at Fitzjames’ behest to give his portion of a story.

“Rest assured, we have enough stores between us to keep us supplied for the full eight hundred miles,” Le Vesconte said as they set up camp on the sixth night. “Particularly you, James.”

“Let’s all hope Lieutenant Fairholme meets us sooner than that. After a certain point, they become compromising on both counts, Dundy.” Fitzjames punctuated this with an elbow in Le Vesconte’s ribs.

“We should be on land soon, sir,” Henry offered with a suspiciously straight face. “The ice is steepest where it hits the shore. This should be it. Or at least, I hope so. If we’re going up anything worse than this, I’ll chop that desk into firewood.”

“That’s an unfortunate note on which to leave the both of you unsupervised,” Fitzjames said as Le Vesconte guffawed and slapped Henry on the back. “I trust there will be no destruction of property while Mr. Bridgens and I meet with our respective betters.”

“No, sir,” Henry and Le Vesconte chimed in unison, albeit with drastically different degrees of earnestness.

Fitzjames rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Brief me on what you hear from Goodsir tomorrow morning, will you?” he said to John. “If Sergeant Tozer’s report on the terrain agrees with Mr. Peglar’s supposition, we’ll need all the rest we can manage tonight.”

John nodded. “I will, sir. Take care you rest yourself.”

It was pleasant, he reflected, being able to trust that Fitzjames would do just that.

With Goodsir, John made the rounds to all the symptomatic men. Most had held remarkably steady through the journey—save Mr. Gibson, one of the Terrors stricken with scurvy, who asked for something to relieve the increasing pain in his joints. Henry did not share the deep circles that ringed Gibson’s eyes. John counted that a blessing, and immediately felt guilty for doing so. A doctor had no price prizing his own loved one’s life above another’s.

“I do hope we make it over the ice tomorrow,” Goodsir confided. “I’ll feel better when we begin hunting parties.”

“Another few days with the tins won’t make a difference after years,” John said uncertainly. “Will they?”

“Perhaps not.” Goodsir clasped his hands in front of him. “It is infuriating, to diagnose and know the precise cure, but be unable to administer it. Let us hope our rescue party greets us with fresher provisions whenever it comes.”

“At least we’re past the darkness now. The daylight’s helped our spirits.” John offered Goodsir a smile. “Maybe the sunrise will shed some light on things.”

His awful pun was rewarded with a quiet chuckle. “Get some rest, please. I’ll wait up for Mr. Morfin. He’s off with Sergeant Tozer and I’m not sure what’s keeping them.” Goodsir stifled a yawn. “Until tomorrow.”

John bid him good night and headed back to his tent. The sun had dipped low enough to cast deep shadows in cliffs formed by the pack. He took a deep breath. Tomorrow, if Henry had it right, they would reach land. And perhaps they would find rescue not long after.


	5. Chapter 5

_As a long-parted mother with her child_  
_Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,_  
_So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,_  
_And do thee favors with my royal hands._

Nunavut was no England, but John wept to see it nonetheless. Once every sledge had made it safely over the ridge, John took off his gloves and knelt upon the shale. He kneaded his hands in the gravel, relishing the feel of earth—sharp, rough, sun-baked earth—for the first time since they’d left Greenland years ago.

“Alright, John?” Henry’s hand squeezed his shoulder.

“It’s beautiful,” John murmured. He might also have called it _desolate_ , for there was no trace of green, and that did not bode well for hunting. _Fearsome_ , too, for the expanse of rock stretched to the horizon—and hundreds of miles beyond, if the charts held true. But it was solid, and thus, _beautiful_. _Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hands._ “I could lay down here and be content.”

“Save your rest for the moment, Mr. Bridgens. We’re not out of harness yet,” said Le Vesconte. He cupped a hand beside his mouth and shouted forward to where Fitzjames, leaning heavily on his walking stick, conferred with Crozier. “How much farther, James?”

“Another mile, to give us some more distance from the ice,” Fitzjames called back. “Then we’ll pitch camp. Give the word.”

Le Vesconte tugged his cap lower over his eyes. “Right, you heard the man. One last push!”

Henry helped John to his feet, though he stumbled himself as the sledge groaned forward. Despite Henry’s high spirits, fatigue had hit him like a rail car on the grueling ascent over the ice. The second they were released from duty, John planned to order him to sleep.

“That was only twenty-five miles, you know,” Henry said, panting for breath. “Twenty-five out of eight hundred.”

“But that terrain was the worst of it, the captains said,” John began, encouragement at the ready, though if they didn’t find food—

“Oh, I know!” Henry interrupted cheerily. “I was going to say that, put another way, we’ve done one thirty-second of the march already. Thirty-one more to go, and that’s if we don’t meet the rescue party sooner. Thirty-one’s not so bad. The Spartans had it worse.”

“And they made it.”

“And so will we, John. Provided my feet don’t fall off this last mile.”

 

* * *

Once tents had been pitched and a perimeter created, John and Goodsir were summoned to brief the captains on the crews’ health. Miraculously, there had been no casualties on the journey. A few more had taken ill, and they all were skinnier than when they had begun, but they all arrived intact.

“Good,” said Crozier. “Since there has been no sign of the creature, I believe we can stay here for some time in relative safety and rebuild our strength.”

“We _must_ have fresh food, sir,” Goodsir insisted. “We cannot continue eating from the tins.”

At the table beside Crozier, Fitzjames looked as though he might slump forward and fall asleep were he not propped up on his elbows. John thought of Henry, now dozing in his tent. A proper rest would do them all good. But Goodsir was right; they needed food if they were to heal.

“My thought was to begin hunting parties first thing tomorrow,” Crozier said.

“Why not immediately?”

John raised his eyebrows. He had never heard Goodsir argue with anyone but Stanley. The doctor spoke respectfully, but he faced the captain head on.

Crozier spread his hands in front of him. “Dr. Goodsir, I am aware of the need. But the men are exhausted and I will not task them with putting in more miles until they have a night’s rest beneath them. One more tinned meal will make no difference. We begin tomorrow, no sooner. I ask your opinion, and that of Mr. Bridgens, on the wisdom of staying for an extended time.”

“We would, of course, move on from this place if we met with neither game nor rescue,” Fitzjames put in. He rubbed at the circles beneath his eyes, revealing a new bruise on the back of his hand. John frowned. Gloves would have covered it, but John didn’t recall seeing the mark before they’d abandoned ships. It was, therefore, unreported.

Goodsir exhaled stiffly. “Yes. Alright. So long as finding new food is made our top priority, rest would be beneficial for us all.”

“Agreed,” said John. “And it will give every man a chance to take stock of himself. They can come to us if anything’s changed.”

Fitzjames slid a bit lower in his chair.

“Thank you, doctors.” Crozier rose from the table. “Then it’s settled. We’ll stay, we’ll hunt, and we’ll mend.”

 

* * *

 

The landscape left the camp exposed from all sides, but the openness worked both ways. Their view was clear in every direction. Nothing could surprise them from without.

Within was another matter.

John Morfin lay still on the ground, blood pooling black beneath him. The scene did not seem real, somehow. Moments ago, John had lifted the man to his feet as he groaned.  He’d grabbed a rifle— _how?_ How had he managed it, with two sets of hands standing by? Why had they let him?—and Goodsir had pleaded, and Crozier had coaxed him as though he were a skittish horse, and Fitzjames—yes, Morfin’s shot had doused Fitzjames’ lantern. He’d start there. As men came forward to bear Morfin’s body away, John moved to where Fitzjames stood with his arms stiff at his sides.

“Captain, are you alright?”

“Fine, Bridgens,” he said shakily. “Not a scratch, if you can believe it.”

“Show me.”

Fitzjames stepped into a pool of light and held out his hands. They were, indeed, unmarred save for the bruises. “It went right through the candle, nowhere near my hand. Morfin is—was—one of our best shots outside the Marines. If he’d wanted to wound me, he would have.” Fitzjames lowered his voice. “Was he one of the men afflicted with—”

John nodded. “One of the first.” He looked around for Goodsir, but the doctor had vanished. He hoped his own memory would serve. “He’s had signs for months, Goodsir said—headaches, weakness. I’ve been giving him mandragora, but it… well. It’s a tonic, not a cure.”

“I wonder if tonics are the best any of us can hope for,” Fitzjames muttered. “Only headaches and weakness, you say? No other indicators of something like this?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir.” In his mind’s eye, John saw the torch poised above Stanley’s head. At least Morfin hadn’t tried to take them with him. “If you ask me, it’s more something made him snap, though I can’t guess what.”

Fitzjames’ face remained neutral, but his jaw clenched. “Thank you, Mr. Bridgens. Comfort the men as you see fit, but not a word of the tins. Francis and I will… we’ll confer.”

“Yes, sir.”

The men not on duty had abandoned their fires and trickled back to shelter. John tried not to look at the dark splotch on the ground as he returned to his own tent. Henry was awake and waiting for him. They were mercifully alone, and John let Henry pull him to his close, one sack over them both. The steady thrum of Henry’s heart helped steady his own. He had not realized how shallow his breathing had become.

“He was my patient,” John whispered. “I was supposed to help him.”

Henry’s thumb stroked the back of John’s hand. “Was he ill?”

“Yes.” _Not a word of the tins_. “His head most of all, it seems.”

“Was he the only one?”

John swallowed. “No. But it’s not catching.”

“He said…” Henry hesitated. “He said something about cutting off heads. What was that?”

Finally, a question he could answer freely. “I don’t know where he got that. A nightmare would be my guess. His mind was confused.” John turned so they were chest to chest. “He wanted to die, Henry. He wouldn’t harm anyone. He made them shoot him. I should have kept hold of him.”

“John.” Henry cupped John’s face in his hands. “John. You did right. You helped him as best you could. I won’t have you thinking it wasn’t enough.”

“But still—”

“Are you calling me a liar, John Bridgens?”

Henry’s sheer indignation coaxed the ghost of a smile out of him. “Never.”

Henry pressed a kiss to John’s forehead. “Then be well.”

 

* * *

 

_Be well_ , Henry said. Providence had other plans.

Hunting parties commenced with the dawn, as promised. The captains departed for the stone cairn to leave tidings of what had befallen in the months since Lieutenant Gore’s sledge party had visited. With fresh game sought for and the ice now at their backs, surely the worst had ended. Surely the blood on the rocks, baked brown by the sunlight, was the last of it.

Then they’d brought back Lieutenant Irving and Mr. Farr.

Farr’s stomach and chest were a gashed mess, and Irving… Caesar’s twenty-three wounds could not compare to this. _Like a breach in nature for ruin’s wasteful entrance_. He’d returned without his manhood or his fingers. The fingers were worse, somehow. It was Irving who’d sewn the little vest and slacks for Jacko; he’d passed them to John through Henry while they were docked in Greenland, to keep the little monkey warm as they passed the Arctic Circle. It was remarkable, deft work. If by some miracle he sat up now, he couldn’t do the same again.

When pressed for a motive, the lone witness—Mr. Hickey, _Terror’_ s caulker’s mate—cited savagery. Lieutenant Hodgson confirmed that they’d found Irving’s telescope among the Netsilik’s belongings, suggesting theft. Goodsir had listened to all of this with his hands balled into fists behind his back.

“They wouldn’t do such a thing,” he’d hissed to John when they were alone with the bodies. “Not unprovoked, certainly, and maybe not even then.”

“But if not the Netsilik…” John’s voice trailed off as he gazed at Irving. Brutalized as he was, no bones were broken, and the width of the wounds did not match the broad multipurpose knives favored by these people. The smaller nicks on Irving’s body could only have been made by a finer blade. “What are you suggesting, Doctor?”

Goodsir glanced back to where Hickey sat with a captive audience at the mess tent. “I am suggesting only that it is highly unlikely for the Netsilik to act in this way.”

Lady Silence had confirmed as much when the captains returned to camp, and John was left the physician in absentia as Goodsir accompanied Lady Silence and Captain Crozier back to the scene of the murders. The noise of camp had fallen to a loaded whisper, tension smothered and stoked at once as the thick fog rolled in. It was in this atmosphere that Henry had come to see him.

Goodsir’s conviction and his own suspicions had kept John calm. Which is how, as Henry had shown him the mottled bruise pooling down his arm, John had been able to reassure him that they would not be attacked, and that his illness could quickly turn around. After all, Captain Fitzjames had taken ill a full month before, and he was active as ever. Short of breath today, yes, but he and Captain Crozier had sprinted the last half-mile back to the camp. That would tire anyone. Wouldn’t it?

If John were honest with himself, it was for this reason that he sought out the captain in his tent.

“Captain? Do you have a moment?”

A silence punctuated by rustling and muffled curses followed until, at least, a strained voice bid John enter.

John inhaled sharply as the tent flap closed behind him. Fitzjames sat on his wolf pelt, his slops, cap, and overclothes scattered on the ground around him. His cravat lay untied and askew across his shoulders, rising and falling with the rapid cadence of his breathing. “What’s the matter, Mr. Bridgens?”

_What indeed?_ Lord, but the captain looked grey. “Men have come to me asking about the attack,” John said. “I know what I believe, but I wanted to check with you about what to tell them.”

“Tell them that Captain Crozier and I do not believe an attack on the camp forthcoming, and we will change course as needed once he gets back from surveying where the killings occurred. That should suffice, one hopes.” He fidgeted with the ends of his cravat, leaving dusty streaks on the black silk. “What do you believe, if I may ask?”

“I believe that history shows Englishmen more capable of butchery than we may want to admit. And I believe also that fear is the worst enemy we have.” _We have too much fear, John_ , Henry had said, tugging down his sleeve to hide his illness. Present fears were _more_ than horrible imaginings.

“Sage as always.” As Fitzjames pushed a clump of hair back from his face, red smeared across his forehead. He scowled and scrubbed his hand against his discarded coat. “Anything else?”

John let the question fly. “Are _you_ alright, sir?”

A moment passed in silence as Fitzjames shut his eyes. “You know,” he said through gritted teeth, “I do wish doctors wouldn’t ask that. The options for reply render one either a liar or a malingerer, and I would be neither.” His eyes snapped open and he snatched up his cap. “Yes, I am fine because no, none of us are. Is that satisfactory?” He yanked the cap over his head almost violently, muttering in a singsong. “Yes, no; no, yes—”

“Ay,” John said absently before thinking better of it.

“What?”

“It’s _ay_ , not _yes._ _‘Ay, no; no, ay._ ’ It has to match with the rest.”

A smile twitched at the edge of Fitzjames’ lips. “ _For I must nothing be._ I’ll pretend the allusion was deliberate.” He uncurled his legs and stretched them in front of him. He still wore his boots, at least. “Forgive me, Bridgens.  It’s been… well, not quite what we had hoped our grand exodus would be, let’s say. Can you spare a moment?”

He and Goodsir had done their rounds before the hunting parties left. New maladies could abide delay. And it would be nice to settle back into old habits, if only for a moment. John returned Fitzjames’ smile. “Of course, sir.”

Fitzjames patted the fur next to him. “Then for God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. But not of King Lear.” With a grunt, he leaned over to his jacket and withdrew a book. “I kept going with Keats, per your recommendation, and I don’t understand why _Lear_ , of all however-many options, was the play about which he chose to wax lyrical.”

“Not your favorite, is it?” John hoped a light conversation would calm him; Fitzjames was still breathing much too hard given the amount of time he’d been at rest. “Hen—Mr. Peglar gave up on it, so you’re in good company.” He did not add that Henry’s frustration had been, in part, because he could not decipher the text without help.

_“Never you mind, Henry. It has dense language, is all.”_

_“Or maybe it’s me that’s dense.”_

That had been years ago, back on the _Gannett._ John wondered how he would fare with it now.

“It’s been ages since I’ve read it, but I know the whole storm bit goes on much too long. I daresay Lear speaks more than Hamlet, but with even less to say,” said Fitzjames. “I couldn’t but take his daughters’ sides, quite frankly. Cordelia ought to have stayed in France and called herself blessed. Gloucester gave his children a fair shot, at least.”

John raised his eyebrows. “Did he? Banishing poor Edgar on hearsay?”

“Well, perhaps not Edgar,” Fitzjames amended. “But certainly Edmund. He _raised_ Edmund.” He curled his lip in spite of his bleeding gums. “‘ _Edmund was loved_.’ What a prat.  Indeed, Edmund the Base, you were loved, and you spat on it. We should all be so lucky.”

If it had, indeed, been ages since the captain had read the play, Gloucester’s bastard must have touched some sort of nerve. “Edmund was young, sir.”

“If that’s meant to excuse him, then you’ve a dim view of youth, Mr. Bridgens.”

“It doesn’t excuse, but even so, age didn’t hold up its end of the bargain,” John said. “And that’s the root of that tragedy, I think. My grey hair and I see it as a warning.”

“Hm.” Fitzjames picked at a stray thread poking from the book’s spine. “Well. Age is doing better than youth is, now. You and Mr. Blanky and Francis are carrying us, and you’re hale and hardy to boot.”

John’s throat tightened. He was hale indeed, as Henry decayed, and nothing about it was fair or right. How long until Henry’s hair began to bleed? How long until loosening teeth began to drop? “You never answered my question, captain, so I’ll try it a better way. How are you faring?”

Fitzjames thumbed the edges of the book’s pages, his eyes downcast. “Tired,” he said finally. “I am tired to my bones. And I look an absolute fright. I haven’t shaved since we left the ships and I can’t even grow anything worthwhile.” He gestured at the clothes around him. “I did try to fix it. That’s what all this is. My arms felt so stiff that I didn’t trust myself with the razor. I thought getting rid of this bulk would solve it, but…” He looked at John imploringly. “Do you have anything that would help? Some tonic other than the mandragora?”

“Dr. Goodsir has a few options for pain, but they all come with drowsiness—”

“No, no, I can’t do with more fatigue. I can abide the aching. I need something to keep me _useful_.”

John shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Ah.” Fitzjames’ mouth tightened. “Well, no matter. I’ll manage.”

John looked at the shaving kit lying open on the floor. Fitzjames had only made it partway through mixing up the lather. “I _can_ give you a hand with shaving, sir, if you’d like. It’ll be easier to manage clean-shaven.”

“Would you?” Bare relief showed in Fitzjames’ face. “Only if you’ve the time.”

“I have the time,” John assured him. “And then I’ll help you with that cravat, for tradition’s sake.”

Fitzjames grinned, pulling the cravat from his shoulder and looping it around his hand. “Quite bold of me to assume a month ago that I could manage it alone.” He pushed himself to his feet, a hand braced against his chest, and resettled himself in the desk chair. “Set the kit on the desk. If we carried the damn thing all this way, it might as well get some use. On my word, it won’t travel an inch further.”

John chuckled as he retrieved the kit from the ground. “Mr. Peglar will be aghast to find out you were the writing desk culprit all along.”

“It was placed here _entirely_ without my knowledge or say-so, I promise you. You know, Francis has one too. Tell Mr. Peglar they’re both his.”

John whipped the brush through the lather. “Two desks for one man? Now, that’s excess. A regular Louis of Versailles, our Captain Crozier.”

“ _Le Capitaine Soleil._ ” Fitzjames made a face as he removed his cap and placed it in his lap. “There must be a better pun there, but my tongue is failing me.”

“I think it works better in English. Collar down please, sir.”

Fitzjames obliged, revealing a collarbone far too pronounced. John began gingerly applying lather to his jaw. “The Sun Captain,” Fitzjames murmured. “Better. Sun Commander has the nicer ring to it, but lacks in rank.”

“That can be for yourself.”

“No, I’m no sun. Yet herein will I imitate it, or try my best.” Fitzjames let out a sigh. “I’m in your debt, Mr. Bridgens. I look abominable and Francis is so lovely.”

John paused. A flush of color rose in Fitzjames’ pallid face, reddening the tips of his ears.

_Oh._

“What I meant,” Fitzjames said hastily, turning his head beneath the brush, “what I meant was—”

He winced as the motion scraped a sore too harshly against the bristles. John placed his other hand on Fitzjames’ shoulder to still him.

“It’s alright, sir. I know.”

“Don’t mention it. He doesn’t need to be—to be bothered, especially now. I don’t know what I was even—”

“It’s alright,” John repeated gently.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s alright.”

“ _Nothing,_ Bridgens.”

Fitzjames had begun to twist the cravat around his knuckles like a garotte. John held out his hand. “Let me get that out of your way, and then I’ll need you to be still for me please, sir. I’m out of practice.”

Fitzjames handed him the cravat and tilted his head back, his pulse visible in his neck. His eyes darted to every place John’s weren’t. John took his time whetting the razor. A year ago, had this come out, he would have counselled with historical examples. He would have advised the captain, in riddles and anecdotes and never in writing, how to conduct himself back on land, to have a life without suspicion if he chose. He would have sent Henry to make inquiries on _Terror_.

Of course, a year ago, it would not have been this man. And if it were, John would have reminded him that the thirty lashes meant for Mr. Hickey—a score and more beyond the two men guilty of kidnapping but not the added charge of “dirtiness”—spoke for themselves. Things had changed.  John remembered his exchange with Captain Crozier on their walk. He’d seen too much of himself in that.

_You needn’t fear_ , John could say. _He cares for you. Only ask him. Who can judge us up here?_

But he could not risk being mistaken.

Instead, he stuck with what he knew.

“You know,” he said as he turned back to the chair, “Henry and I thought, when we joined up, that this would be a grand shared adventure. He’s dear to me, and I to him, and it’s been that way for years.”

Fitzjames’ nervous eyes settled back on John’s.

John held Fitzjames’ face still with his left hand, and with his right began to draw the razor across Fitzjames’ cheek.  “Commissions are funny things, and the timing got to keeping us apart more than we liked. We missed serving together, so we joined this expedition. You about broke our hearts when you assigned us to different ships, sir.”

Fitzjames’ eyebrows knit together.

“I mean no offense, Captain,” John told him. “You put us where we were most needed. And we couldn’t well have given you a practical reason not to. But it was a special type of vexation to see _Terror_ behind us, and know Henry was right there less than a mile away, but not be able to cross that distance. Captain Crozier gave me fits when he’d come aboard in his old foul mood, because Henry would have eaten his own hat to have duty take him aboard _Erebus_.”

John wiped off the blade and continued. “When the ships became stuck, I felt very selfish, because the first thing I thought was, well, I at least I can walk to him now.  Now, in fairness, I thought we’d get a thaw. I wouldn’t wish this on us. But even as things got worse, and weeks turned to years, having him near made all the difference. It still does. With him, I could walk forever.”

“If I may be bold…” Fitzjames spoke out of the corner of his mouth, mindful of the razor, but did not finish his thought. John worked in quiet, leaving space for him to find the words. After some moments, Fitzjames finally asked, “How did he become dear to you?”

“Without me realizing.” John couldn’t but smile. “We met serving on the same ship. We enjoyed each other’s company, and we enjoyed books, and it came to a point where I couldn’t abide doing without either, but if I had to choose one, I’d choose him.”

“How did you know he would choose you?”

The first book John had lent Henry, before either of them knew where this would lead, had been a volume of Robert Burns. Henry stole it back without John knowing and recited to him one day when they were alone. _“Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt wi’ the sun; I will luve thee still, my dear, while the sands o’ life shall run—”_ and here, in place of the final stanza and it’s _fare-thee-weel_ , Henry had pulled John close and kissed him—

“He gave me a poem,” John replied.

“So poetry does work on occasion. You’re fortunate, Mr. Bridgens.”

“In that way, yes.” John put the razor back on the desk. “There we are, sir.” John picked up a cloth and cleared the residue off Fitzjames’ face. The shave made Fitzjames look a bit more like his old self, and stronger by extension. “Less abominable by your standards, I hope.”

John handed Fitzjames the mirror so he could see himself. The captain stroked his chin approvingly. “Presentable, at any rate. Thank you for this, Mr. Bridgens. And for… the rest, too. I—”

“James!”

The tent flap flew open to reveal Lieutenant Le Vesconte, eyes wide and out of breath. “Little’s gone and opened the armory!”

John’s heart sank. The mirror dropped from Fitzjames' hand as he pushed himself to his feet, glass cracking on the shale. “On whose orders?”

“On _nobody’s_ orders,” Le Vesconte said. “Unless you want half these men armed, you’ve got to quell this. Where the devil have you been?”

Fitzjames snatched up the cap and jammed it roughly onto his head. “Damn my eyes,” he hissed. “Damn it all.”


	6. Chapter 6

Goodsir was right. Hickey had lied.

Irving’s gutted corpse lay on the table in the main infirmary tent, a formless lump beneath the tarp. Goodsir slung Irving’s pouch—laden with seal meat, as his stomach had been—over his shoulder.

Lady Silence, John realized, had gone without fresh fruit for as long as they had. Longer, maybe, given the face she’d made when Goodsir offered her lemon juice. And yet, she’d been in better health than any of them, her injury aside. Maybe seal meat had something in it that their beef and mutton did not. Maybe it could fix them, could fix Henry and the captain and the others who bled from their teeth.

Well, it was too late to know now. To ask for help after what they’d done would be the height of arrogance.

“Shall I come with you? To vouch?” John asked Goodsir.

“No. If someone’s taken the Peruvian, they make take more. Half of these are poison in the wrong dose, and some lend themselves to abuse.” Goodsir gestured at a small, nondescript vial. “The laudanum especially. You’ll never know you’ve had too much because you’ll simply drift off and not come back. That might be a mercy later. But it’s for us to give.”

“No second Morfins,” John said.

“Nor second Irvings.” Goodsir ground his teeth. “Hanging is too good. A _child_ , Mr. Bridgens. A part of me wants the rope to take its time. Part of me wishes Lieutenant Hodgson were there right along with him, for being so quick to lift his rifle. If you’d seen…” His voice trailed off as he rubbed his face. “Forgive me. Another reason it’s better you stay here, Mr. Bridgens. A physician is meant to do no harm, and I can’t promise that now.”

Henry, too, was going to the trial. “I can ask for you to stay back with me,” John offered. “A second man might be a good idea anyhow, with how strange Mr. Collins has been acting since the afternoon.”

“I’m no doctor, and we’re all called.”

“Captain Fitzjames would let you stay, I’m sure.”

“Sure why?”

Fitzjames had made him swear no oaths, but the matter of their talk seemed… secret, somehow, even with direr problems at hand. It was not John’s tale to tell. “You were Mr. Hickey’s friend once,” he said instead.

“I think that’s why I should go,” said Henry. “To see it through. I don’t know—I don’t know how he’s come to this. But he _was_ my friend.”

And so, as the fog rolled in and the camp cleared, John waited alone with Irving for the next two corpses.

 

\--

 

He’d never encountered the creature himself. It had always been drawn towards Terror, never Erebus, and John’s station had never put him in harm’s way as Henry’s had. Henry and Goodsir had never spoken of its presence—only of its aftermath, of bodies rent asunder, of pounds of flesh taken and discarded like offal.

But when he heard the roar—part growl, part gale—there could be no doubt.

John moved on instinct alone. The fog smothered his sight, and the clamor of shouts and shots and groans assailed his ears. The shale shook with the creature’s heavy strides. John bolted between shelters when the vibrations quieted, guiding any living men he stumbled upon. He longed to call for Henry, but dared not risk drawing him out of safety. Once, as he ran, he glimpsed a flash of red peeking beneath a corpse’s slops. He diverted course with his heart in his throat, and felt a shameful wash of relief when he found a Marine’s coat and not a steward’s sweater.

The shale clattered to his right, and John recognized a lean, slouching shadow hobbling in the opposite direction.

“Captain?”

“ _Stay back!”_

The creature’s cry sounded ahead. Fitzjames’ pace quickened towards it. Bridgens began to follow—

“ _Stay back and get down, damn you!”_

Another roar underscored the order. John dove beneath an upended piece of furniture. The creature was close enough now for John to make out its bulk shifting through the fog like a landbound leviathan. Fitzjames dropped to his knees and moved no more. John pushed himself to disobey, hoping he could drag him back to shelter in time—

Then he saw the sparks.

They crackled from Fitzjames’ hand and erupted into radiance, shrieking eagle-like across the gloom until their vessel exploded against the creature’s side. The creature howled and charged, but a second rocket met it midway in a cloud of fire. It veered away. Its footfalls faded. Fitzjames dropped his spent match. He waited, as did John.

The quiet was broken by a delirious whoop.

“You shot it! You shot a _monster_ with a _rocket!”_

The shout made John leap from his hiding spot. “Henry!”

_“John!”_

His aching knees protested as he sprinted towards his dear, who tore through the fog and smoke from up ahead. They collided in a tangle of limbs. John tangled his fingers in Henry’s hair and pulled him tightly against him while Henry kissed him on his jaw and cheek and any place he could land his lips as words tumbled out in a mad, giddy rush.

“You’re safe, we’re safe, thank God, I was so scared, but we’re safe and the captain—”

Henry’s voice died and he abruptly broke apart their embrace, turning towards the audience he’d forgotten they had. Fitzjames, shoulders heaving, knelt on the ground with his pile of Congreves barely more than an arm’s length away. “The captain shot a monster with a rocket,” he finished timidly.

Fitzjames regarded them with wide eyes and an open mouth that resolved itself into a smile. “Well, gunpowder worked so well before,” he said. “And rockets make for a much better story than cannon fire, don’t you think?”

“Saint George and the dragon for the modern era.” John put his arm back around an incredulous Henry. “You nearly gave me a fit back there, running _towards_ it.”

Fitzjames’ smile stretched the lines in his cheeks. “It’s fortunate you didn’t know me in my twenties, Mr. Bridgens.”

“It was on us, you know.” Henry had regained his voice and pointed in the direction whence he’d come, where a cluster of other shadows were now moving cautiously. “Some of us were hiding beneath the sledge over there and it was practically on top of us when the first rocket hit it.”

“Was Francis with you?” Fitzjames asked. “Captain Crozier.”

His smile fell as Henry shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since the trial, sir.”

Just then, a shrill whistle pierced the air, followed by a welcome brogue.

_“All able men, to me!”_

Fitzjames let out a sigh and cast his eyes heavenward, mouthing what might have been _thank you._ “Well,” he said aloud, “to our work alive.”

The whistle sounded again. The three of them turned to follow it.

“Where were you, John?” Henry asked.

John gestured towards his hiding spot. “I ended under—oh, lord.” Now that he possessed a clearer head, he recognized his hiding place for the writing desk.

John stifled a snort. Henry and Fitzjames both burst into cackles.

“We owe someone an apology,” Henry said, wiping tears from his eyes.

Fitzjames thumped Henry’s back. “It’s true,” he wheezed, hand pressed against his chest. “How you get here isn’t as important as what you do.”

“To the desk,” John intoned somberly. If jesting amid the dead was deeply inappropriate, it was also deeply needed.

“To the desk!” they laughed, as the whistle trilled once more.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am PANTS at updating this, and for that I apologize. I'd intend for this to be part of a longer chapter, but then figured they worked better with this bit split off. So here's a very brief chapter, and I will try to complete the remaining two in a reasonable time!


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